DAVID MOTTRAM v REGINA

Whether a murder involves sexual conduct for the purposes of paragraph 3(2)(e) of Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020 is a fact-specific question. The purpose and motivation for the killing, the nature of the sexual conduct, its planning, and its timing relative to death may all be relevant. None is determinative.

A previous description of the provision's intended reach should not be elevated into an exhaustive definition. Sexually humiliating and degrading acts, viewed with their surrounding context, may amount to sexual conduct and may justify the 30-year starting point where they accompanied the murder and increased its ordeal or depravity.

The appellant was convicted at Chester Crown Court of the murder of his neighbour, Samantha Heap, and received life imprisonment with a 30-year minimum term.

The sentencing judge held that the murder involved sexual conduct within paragraph 3(2)(e) of Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020. The judge relied on the treatment of the victim's body, the appellant's conduct, and evidence of his sexual hostility towards her. The judge also made an alternative finding concerning a length of flex.

The appellant appealed his sentence. He contended that the sexual conduct was unplanned, may have occurred after death, and did not bring the murder within the 30-year starting-point provision. Alternatively, he challenged the finding about the flex.

1. Appeal dismissed. The sentencing judge was entitled to adopt the 30-year starting point under paragraph 3(2)(e) of Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020.

2. The question whether a murder involves sexual conduct is fact-specific. The court approved the warning in AG Ref No 68/2013; R v Nelson that the observation in R v Daniel Walker, [2007] EWCA 2631, should not be treated as an exhaustive definition. The killer's purpose and motivation, the nature and planning of the conduct, and its timing in relation to death may be relevant, but none supplies a determinative test.

3. The exposure of the victim's breasts, alteration of her clothing, and placement of a remote control against her groin were sexual acts intended to humiliate and degrade her. The blood and DNA evidence on the appellant's clothing, together with the circumstances of the attack and his statements, entitled the judge to find that the conduct occurred before death and accompanied the murder. The context also supported the finding that sexual humiliation and degradation formed part of the appellant's motivation.

4. Accordingly, the murder involved sexual conduct which increased both the victim's ordeal and the depravity of the killing. It was unnecessary to determine the alternative ground concerning whether the appellant took and used a length of flex as a ligature.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Dismissed the appellant's sentence appeal and upheld the 30-year minimum term.
• Crown Court at Chester On 23 September 2021, convicted the appellant of murder. On 27 September 2021, imposed life imprisonment with a 30-year minimum term.